


Set it on Fire Again

by Le_Chien_Bleu



Category: The Libertines
Genre: M/M, hints of BDSM., some slightly dodgy fantasy, tiny mentions of RL
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-19
Updated: 2016-09-19
Packaged: 2018-10-31 16:53:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10903533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Le_Chien_Bleu/pseuds/Le_Chien_Bleu
Summary: One-shot.  Peter has a late-night visitor to his hotel room.  Musings on prettiness and love and sex.  Mostly sex.





	Set it on Fire Again

**Author's Note:**

> There's no plot here.  Hotel room, check.  PWP, check.  Extraneous fire imagery, double check.  

  
**SET IT ON FIRE AGAIN**

There is nothing pretty about sex.  Not the real stuff, which comes with want and late nights and feels uncontrollable, like laughing or crying.  No candlelit romance here, or cosy firesides.  Just cigarette smoke that folds itself into his clothes, and nights that burn into his brain.  He’s had the other kind, that is all pretty poses and preparing for your close-up, pouting and fluttering his lashes.  Imitating the pretty pictures he sees of himself in glossy magazines, although there are less of them these days.  No fire, no burnt fingers, no fun.

When Carl falls through his hotel room door at three in the morning, there is nothing pretty about the mess of tangled hair and liquid limbs that tumbles into his arms, in a crumple of worn leather, lips smearing against his skin in a breath of slurred nothings.  He has absorbed the night, dragging its smoky darkness into the room with him.

There is nothing pretty in the picture of himself reflected in Carl’s eyes, smudged with drink and tiredness.  Hair tugged the wrong way from dragging his fingers through it too many times.  Clothes, carefully chosen hours ago, untucked and trying to undress themselves by now, ink on his shirt cuff, a button lost to the day.  It wraps languidly around them both, this bone-aching want for sleep; late night and early morning clashing in the sky outside, the blanketing dark rumpled up by the first fissures of daylight.  Hours of slow, fizzing anticipation have bubbled up in fast excitement like a sugar rush – rising giddily as he opened the door – and fallen flat.  It makes them clumsy now, hips and shoulders bumping in sharp knocks, shoving close with impatient mouths and hands.

Nothing pretty in the way Carl’s shirt tangles up around his neck, one arm trapped uselessly in a sling of twisted fabric as he stumbles, snarls of dark hair and curses caught in white cotton.

No sensuous slide out of garments that melt away into the night, baring strips of moonlight skin.  Just the tussle of stubborn shirt and man in a one-armed dance, muffled _fckkngstpidfckrthngfckoff_ that makes Peter swallow down the urge to laugh.  Not helped by the way Carl keeps fighting a bit even whilst Peter’s fingers are plucking away the shirt to free him.  Nothing pretty in the fact that Carl isn’t sure he’s trying to help, which Peter might be offended by, except that he knows the idea has flitted butterfly-fast through his brain – taking advantage of Carl’s helplessness to drag the shirt behind him and bind it tight around both wrists, capture him helpless and frustrated before he has a chance to escape.  Nothing pretty in that desire either, unkind, instinctive.  The pictures flutter over the backs of his eyes and away, released into the breeze.  He reaches instead to hold Carl still, one arm around his bare waist, patiently unpicks the stiff buttons that he hasn’t bothered with until there is enough room to untangle him from the shirt.

Nothing pretty in the eyes scrunching shut against the sudden shock of light, lashes laced in dark lines like smudged make-up.  Skin streaked pink from heat and frustration.  Peter touches the mark on his arm, a small pink circle, where a button has pressed its shape into the soft flesh.  Pushes down hard to see if it hurts. Watches Carl flinch, curling away and then back into him.  No prettiness in his face now, but a challenge: to hurt him properly, leave his own marks.  They do that often enough and there’s nothing pretty in the bruising grips that shadow their bodies for days afterwards, in the grim satisfaction of feeling each other’s touch ghosting over flesh and catching surprising glimpses in mirrors, a constellation of fingerprints starred over his hip, secret print of sharp teeth kissed into the back of his neck.  He doesn’t want to let tonight descend into a scrap of petty anger and rekindled resentments, always simmering beneath the surface and ready to catch.

There is nothing pretty in the bursts of petulant temper.  Flaring between them in the midst of guitar strings and bright lights, ignited by some careless glance or a breath landing too long on a particular word, a back turning away at the wrong second.  Sometimes it flashes searing and breathless in his chest - sucking up all the oxygen - extinguished in the next second, arms draped around his neck and hot, damp breath replacing his own.  Or maybe it flickers quietly, cupped like a sparking lighter in his hand, ready to catch and burn without warning.  There are days and nights like that singed with ugly dark marks, grievances crushed out like the glowing tip of a cigarette on skin.  

So he drags himself out of Carl’s gaze, locking them together.  Better, tonight, to be the first one to blink.  Turns his attention instead to undressing him, fighting open his belt buckle, finding the zip on his jeans and dragging down its metal teeth in rough jerks as they  
stick together and catch his fingers on their sharp edges. _Fuckit_ on his lips in place of pretty words, then his fingers are between Carl’s lips, wet and sucking away the soreness.  Carl, who has slumped unprettily on his shoulder, content to watch Peter’s battle with his clothes through half-shut eyes.  Thinks he might fall asleep there if Peter takes too long so he gets a firm grip on denim and yanks it down, wriggling the jeans over hipbones and the damp dips behind his knees, catching at the awkward bumps of his ankles.  Down on the floor, kneeling at the stretch of naked skin above him, Peter thinks that this is better than pretty.  Stripped bare, restless and turning pinker under Peter’s gaze, he likes that there is nowhere for Carl to hide his flaws.   

The unpretty parts are his favourite bits, tracing them with his finger like a familiar map: seams of his jeans pressed pink up his legs, soft swell of his belly where his hand curls self-consciously, all the secret bumpy scars like memories written into his skin, the rough line beneath the curve of his jaw where his face split apart, imperfect line of his nose that he glares at in the mirror.  You can only really see them up close like this, inch by inch, when Carl is too tired to stop him.

He pauses, forces breaths between the seconds, to admire the arrangement of Carl’s limbs over the bedclothes where he’s pushed him down.  Like this – a spread of golden skin – he should be stretched over dark silk like an exhibit.  Rather than crumpled hotel sheets, slept in last night and tea spattered where he lay reading earlier, still holding the memory of his body curved into them.  
Artful maybe, rather than pretty, the way shadows cling to the lines of his body, shielding his bare skin and teasing the places that Peter wants to touch.  It doesn’t surprise him at all that even the light is on Carl’s side.  Familiar by now with the way it flirts and kisses all his best angles on stage, like an attentive groupie.  Follows them into darker corners and makes Peter pause sometimes to marvel at the flashes of beauty in the sudden dip of his head, the curl of a smile unfurling his face like petals in a burst of sunshine.  
No pretty words to tell him that, though.  Not with Carl breathing hotly into the curve of his neck, whispering all the things he wants in mumbled words and sharp kisses.

Nothing pretty in the things Carl wants done to him, things he’d smack Peter for daring to suggest in daylight.  And he loves the hushed confessions that darkness brings, stumbling hot-faced words, all rough and faded at the edges like old polaroids, secrets crushed in the tight hollow between their bodies.  Dirty pictures, inky dark and seductive, tattooing themselves in Peter’s brain, coiling hot twists of desire down his spine like ropes to hold him down.  No time or inclination for poetry here, to find the right words to stretch around them, tangled together in a jumble of knees and ribs and necks bent awkwardly.  To shape the lines to explain that pretty, if it’s anything, is the hungry way Carl stares up at him like something he wants to touch, needs to have as his own.  It’s the shiver that trickles down his spine from the open window, so Peter can feel the little vibrations through his own body where Carl has pressed up tight against him to steal his heat.

He wouldn’t appreciate being told.  Suggestions of prettiness fold his face into a frown, coil sulky resistance into his body, winding him tight and ready to snap at the slightest excuse.  Carl isn’t pretty, anyway.  Not pretty like girls, legs criss-crossed in fishnets that make him want to run his fingers up the ladders of them until he reaches the top; lips sticky pink like sucked sweets.

There is nothing pretty in this fumble of need, greedy and desperate, wet mouths and hard flesh, nails sliding down sweat-slicked skin, sheets rubbing and twisting beneath them.  Desire dripping down the coil of their bodies, pooling stickily at the base of his spine where Carl’s fingers circle and tease, sending ripples of pleasure through the cradle of his hips, making him ache to touch; suddenly spilling over, engulfing them in a hot, breathless flood.  Touching helplessly, hands trying to reach everywhere at once.

No flawless golden skin here, no tumble of dark silk, no Adonis beauty to gaze upon in wonder.  No poetry for this mess of flesh and bones, spit and sweat and sticky slide of skin.  Carl’s chest is splotched red and wet with kisses and bites, received equally with an appreciative moan, spine snaking up for more; face stained pink with want, hair shoved back in damp tangles.  Peter knows he hates being looked at like this, twists away when he tries to slow, to stretch enough space between them to steal a glimpse.  He’d like to tell Carl to stop hiding, that he likes him best this way: wrecked with need, sticky and desperate, arching up into his fist, saliva streaked where he’s licked and sucked him sore.

Nothing pretty in this – the open gasp of his mouth, wide and pleading as his eyes – that makes him want to push and punish.  Tightens his fist around him as his fingers twist inside, swallowing his startled cry of pain, mirrored in the clench of his spine, arching away.  Catching sharp teeth over kiss swollen lips.  Coaxing and teasing the breathy, bitten moans that mean surrender.  Nothing pretty in fucking him – rough slide and stretch of tight muscle – making him groan and swear into the battered pillows.  Searing pleasure that consumes him, makes him forget kindness, pushing it out with the swelling need to fill him, to bury himself in the tight circle of heat.

Dragging himself back under control enough to hold still – sorry, when he sees Carl’s face, scrunched with pain - reaching down to kiss away the hurt.  Soothing in slow, careful circles of his hips, so he can see every spiral of pleasure shiver through Carl’s body.  Uncoiling in the impatient twitch of his hips, trying to force him deeper, snaking its way up his spine so his back arches, tightening his nipples into sharp buds that beg to be tugged with his teeth.  Then, only when Peter is slow and gentle, he protests.  Eyes opening in a flash of blue, darkening like the sky before a storm.  Laughter twitching at his lips then, at the idea that no brute force, no humiliation can enrage his love so much as tenderness.

Nothing pretty in the spill of words as he gives him what he wants – sounds that can’t quite pull themselves together – a rush of fantasy and poetry all tangled in dirty thoughts and dredged up cruelties.  The crushing need to describe to Carl exactly how he looks, spread out on his back to be fucked senseless, just where he belongs; the way he squirms and moans like a slut and how perfectly fucking beautiful he looks.  No prettiness in the words reflected back at him, a litany of fucks and _Ptr_ mangled with _pls_ and _fckff_.  Teeth and nails, in his shoulder, scraping down his back.  Nothing pretty then in the twist of satisfaction when that’s enough to push them both over the edge, dissolving in moans and heat, clinging together as they fall apart.

Ugh, says Carl, or something like it.  A general moan of dissatisfaction, maybe from the hand sliding stickily over his belly, the final twist of Peter’s hips, pushing unkindly into him where he’s sore and tender.  Spell broken, it is always faintly ridiculous to find themselves like this, tangled together, breathing hard against wet skin, the mess of it all smeared between them.  Impossible to explain if anyone found them now – and they nearly have, once or twice, and just the thought of that is enough to send an ache through Peter again – how this happens.  How they slip from frantic, pounding passion to wry smiles and peeling themselves apart, Peter trying not to smirk as the movement makes Carl wince.  Failing entirely at his grimace of distaste when Peter swipes the corner of the sheet over him.  Darkening to a glare when he tries instead to wipe his fingers clean in his hair, and gets his hand smacked away with more force than necessary.  Enough to spill over into shoving and wrestling, the pressure of a thigh sliding between his own making him moan, mouth closing over a tender nipple in retaliation until Carl whimpers.  Softening again into teasing and muttered jibes, pulling Carl back into his arms carefully, shushing his grumbles with a cigarette between his lips.  Lying wrapped around him, the first flickers of desire licking at his belly just from being this close, pressing half-hard against his hip.  Content with a stretch of hours between them and morning and the warm promise of the body curled into his own.

Nothing pretty about the phone-screens that flash in silent warning, sharp slices of light cutting through the dark room and the hush of their bodies pressed together.  The missed calls that go unanswered.  All the times they have done this with mouths shoved messily into pillows, lips and tongues bitten sore, aware of every breath and shudder of sound; aware of the people on the other side of the wall, behind the flimsy dressing room door, barely shielded by the curtains dragged around their bunks.  No pretty thoughts to cloak the fact that it sends a grubby shiver over him, the idea of being overheard while he’s making Carl moan and plead into the sheets.  The twisty, tempting knowledge - because he’s whispered it enough times, low taunting and pulling a handful of silken hair tight around his fist – that the idea of being discovered, down on his knees with Peter’s cock between his lips, wet and red as his flushed face, is enough to make Carl moan and melt in his hands.

The combination is enough to rouse him from this almost slumber, dragging Carl back with him from the hazy edge of sleeping and waking, with whispered promises to be gentle, and kissed pleas.  Holding him in the curve of his body, wrists pinned tightly in his grasp as he sucks at the sensitive dip of his neck, sharing all the sleepy, filthy thoughts that are burning on his tongue.  Feeling Carl heat up against him – watching the blush spill over his chest, creep up his arched neck to stain his cheeks – until he is smouldering and squirming for more.  Still arguing as he grinds back into Peter, swearing mutedly at the dark suggestions murmured into his hair, carrying on the fight – _bastard_ and _fckingpervert_ and _I’llputyouonyourfuckingknees-ooohPtrrr_ \- even as he bucks into his fist.

No pretty last words before Peter is flung onto his back – wondering, as he yelps and puts up enough of a fight to show willing, whether it was the offer to drag him out onto the balcony and fuck him over the railings that tipped him over the edge, or maybe the threat of holding him down and coming all over his pretty face – and shown exactly what Carl thinks of his bedtime stories.  He cries out, an ugly scraping sound as fingers plunder and stretch him open, pain sparking at the sudden friction of being filled in one brutal thrust.  Fire and fury blazing through him in rough, scorching waves.  Flashing white heat behind his eyes as he clings closer and throws himself into the flames.  No pretty poetic imagery in his brain as he surrenders, nothing but the burn and bruising of their bodies, as they let the flames fuse them together, consuming, and set the night on fire again.  
  



End file.
